Shameless plug: Poul Guttesen’s “Leaning Into The Future”

In these Moltmannian days, it's quite a coincidence that my good friend and theological sort of mentor Poul Guttesen finally got his PhD thesis published. It's called Leaning Into the Future: The Kingdom of God in the Theology of Jürgen Moltmann and the Book of Revelation and was just published by Wipf and Stock. It brings, as you can imagine, Moltmann's theology of Kingdom of God into conversation with the book of Revelation. The thesis was supervised by Richard Bauckham, who is both a Moltmann expert (Moltmann himself said that sometimes Bauckham understands him better than he understands himself) and a top notch Biblical scholar. His book on Revelation is amazing in that regard. Oh, and Bauckham wrote the foreword. So Poul's book should be good!

Leaning Into the Future: The Kingdom of God in the Theology of Jürgan Moltmann and the Book of Revelation
by Poul Guttesen

Leaning into the Future seeks to explore what it may mean to believe in the "Kingship" of God and wait for his "Kingdom" by considering the fundamental role the Kingdom of God plays in the theology of Jürgen Moltmann and in the book of Revelation. Part one is devoted to how Moltmann understands "The Kingdom of God" as the fundamental symbol of hope for humanity, and how he sees the presence of God's reign and kingdom in history as hidden and paradoxical. Part two turns to the way the Book of Revelation uses royal and other political language in its portrait of the future and God's presence in history. In this second part, the book also seeks to explore how Moltmann and the Apocalypse may mutually inform each other, how Moltmann may help us read this biblical book today, and how it in turn may overcome some of the weaknesses in Moltmann's proposal.

"There has been a movement on the part of some biblical scholars and some systematic theologians to bring their disciplines back together after a long period of alienation. This is not a matter of dissolving one into the other, but of finding ways in which serious dialogue can bear fruit. Poul Guttesen's work is an exemplary contribution to this. By engaging Jürgen Moltmann's theology and the biblical book of Revelation in a mutually illuminating dialogue Guttesen is, of course, hosting such an encounter within the creative theological context of his own engagement with both. He enters with sympathy and perception into both of these visions of the kingdom of God, with their very different theological idioms, and explores both the consonances and the tensions he finds between them."
—Richard Bauckham, from the Foreword

"In recent years, there has been an encouraging resolve to bridge the gap between biblical studies and systematic theology. Poul Guttesen contributes to this movement with considerable distinction. Sensitive and qualified in both areas, he shows how enriching it is to use both Moltmann in biblical interpretation and Revelation to correct Moltmann's eschatology. Poul Guttesen combines theological competence with an awareness of the practical urgency of thinking aright about the kingdom of God."
—Stephen Williams, Union Theological College

Buy it here.